Roasted chicken is the ultimate home cooked meal. But dealing with a whole chicken can be overwhelming from cleaning it, to stuffing it, to cutting it, not to mention hours of cooking time. Here’s a shortcut to making a delicious roasted chicken dinner in under an hour with minimal fuss and clean up.
Buy a whole chicken already cut into 8 pieces. Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff raises and sells free range organic chickens and it’s an excellent local farm to buy the freshest poultry. This recipe has only a few ingredients so the secret to pulling out every bit of flavor is to use the highest quality chicken you can find.
Another secret is to nudge garlic under the bird. Take a whole bulb, break off the cloves (but leave the papery skin on) and stick them underneath. The chicken will baste the garlic as it cooks. The end result is mild, buttery, soft garlic that easily pops out of the skin. Use the roasted garlic as a condiment with the chicken and veggies or spread on bread instead of butter. It’s a weeknight dinner you can throw into your rotation
Roasted Chicken With Garlic
Serves 4-6
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
3 ½ lb chicken cut into 8 pieces
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
2-4 sprigs each of fresh rosemary and thyme
1-tablespoon salt
1 bulb of garlic, cloves broken apart
2 baking potatoes, peeled and cubed in 2” pieces
2 large carrots, peeled and cut in 2” pieces
Salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 475°.
- In a large bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, thyme and salt.
- Toss chicken, carrots, potatoes and garlic in mixture. Evenly scatter in a rimmed shallow baking or broiler pan. Tuck the garlic cloves under the chicken. Sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper.
- Roast, flipping once until cooked through and fragrant, 45 minutes.
- Change oven temperature to broil and broil chicken for 5 more minutes so it gets golden and crispy on top.
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